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"Fiery but mostly peaceful": CNN's Kenosha chyron

On Aug. 25, 2020, CNN aired the on-screen caption "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting" while correspondent Omar Jimenez reported from Kenosha with buildings burning behind him. The caption became shorthand for criticism that coverage of the 2020 unrest played down the destruction. The 2020 unrest went on to produce what insurers called the costliest civil disorder in US insurance history.

Aug 25, 2020 ·

What the record shows

Lead Stories confirmed the chyron ran on CNN's "Early Start" at 5:06 AM ET on Aug. 25, 2020. Axios, reporting data from Property Claim Services (a Verisk unit that has tracked riot losses since 1950), said insured losses from the May 26 to June 8, 2020 unrest would reach at least $1 billion to $2 billion, well above the prior record of $775 million set by the 1992 Los Angeles riots. PCS made it the first civil disorder it designated a multi-state catastrophe, covering 20 states. On May 28, 2020, Minneapolis police abandoned the Third Precinct station and rioters set it on fire. ACLED's data, widely cited by outlets defending the protests, counted more than 10,600 demonstration events from May 24 to Aug. 22, 2020, of which nearly 95% involved peaceful protesters. In contrast, the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack was widely covered as a violent riot, and about 140 police officers were injured that day.

What the record doesn’t support

The ACLED figure is a real finding: most of the more than 10,000 demonstration events involved no violence or property destruction, so "mostly peaceful" was accurate as a count of events. The criticism concerns the caption's wording over live footage of fires, and how little weight the coverage gave to the concentrated, record-setting damage. The record does not show any CNN editorial policy behind the caption, and no CNN statement about it was found.

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